BSC #30: Mary Anne and the Great Romance

Tagline: It's Mary Anne and Dawn's dream come true!

It's official - Mary Anne's father and Dawn's mother are getting married! The Baby-sitters think it's so romantic, especially since Mr Spier and Mrs Schafer first fell in love when they were in high school.

But nothing can top Mary Anne and Dawn's excitement. They want a huge wedding with beautiful dresses, lots of presents, and a five-layer cake. After all, this isn't just any wedding. Mary Anne and Dawn are going to be baby-sitters, best friends, and sisters, too!

The book opens with Mary Anne and Dawn hanging out together as their parents go on another date.
It starts off pretty slowly, with everyone just going about their regular business, sitting for clients and what not. A few nights later, Dawn's mom has to work late, so Richard invites Dawn over for dinner with him and MA. He then tells the girls that he wants to do something special for Sharon's birthday (which is coming up), and asks the girls to help him plan something. Together, they decide to surprise Sharon with dinner (getting a friend of Richard's to set it up like a business meeting), and Dawn and MA excitedly go off to plan their presents. MA attempts to come up with ideas, but Dawn shoots them all down, giving MA no suggestions in return. MA's a little peeved, but they get past it fast.

Anyways, at the birthday dinner, Richard surprises everyone by proposing to Sharon. He and Sharon had already talked and agreed to get married, but Richard surprises Sharon with a ring (even though they had decided against them). Dawn and MA are overjoyed at the thought of being stepsisters, but MA starts to feel slightly off about things. She remembers that Dawn had mentioned that Sharon hated cats, but of course MA has Tigger. MA also wonders at how her super neatfreak father was going to be able to share a house with someone as disorganized and scatterbrained as Sharon. She quickly quashes these feelings and moves on.

As time goes on though, MA keeps thinking of possible conflicts. She and Dawn get to help plan the wedding, and the two girls have completely different ideas of what they want to wear as bridemaids. Dawn then points out that they haven't even been asked to be bridesmaids, and when Richard and Sharon mention getting married again, the girls immediately launch into long and elaborate descriptions of a lush and lavish ceremony they want to have. Richard and Sharon had been planning on just getting married at city hall, and having a nice dinner with the girls and Jeff. Eventually, everyone decides on a compromise: a small ceremony with only their 20 closest friends and family, followed by a lunch reception with everyone. Everything seems well and settled, until Dawn starts talking about how exciting it'll be to have MA living with her, and how they should share Dawn's room. MA immediately explodes, because she had no idea what the living arrangements were going to be, and is upset that Dawn knew about it before her.

Richard talks to MA, and explains that he meant to tell her sooner, but couldn't figure out how. At first, MA is livid at the idea of her and her dad giving up everything, and having to sacrifice it all for the Schafers. Richard then explains that no, both families will be getting rid of some things while keeping other things, and that it'll all work out fine. Even though Richard and Sharon make it clear that MA can have her own room and decorate it how she wants, Dawn convinces her that it'd be more fun to share a room, since they both always wanted a sister. MA calms down, but still can't quite shake the feeling that something is off.

The wedding day soon arrives, and it's a beautiful and simple ceremony. Things go perfectly as planned, and everyone gets down to the reception to order lunch. Although MA is happy for her dad, she starts feeling crabby. She starts wondering how they're going to prepare meals when Dawn and her mother are both vegetarians. She hears Sharon say something negative about having a litter box around. MA starts dwelling on her thoughts, and starts to miss her old room and how things were. But before she can work herself up into too much of a tizzy, Dawn gives her a silver bracelet, a "now we're sisters" present. Sharon then gets ready to throw the bouquet, and the book leaves off on that cliffhanger haha

The subplot in this one revolves around the Arnold Twins. Actually, it's more of a parallel plot, since it takes up almost as many chapters. Now that they're becoming more individual and have their own interests, they're starting to have their own friends. But it's hard for them, because they're starting to compete with each other in what they perceive is popularity and achievements and parents. Carolyn is more social and "trendy", with older friends such as Vanessa and Hayley. Marilyn is having a harder time making friends, and is more introverted. Eventually, things come to a head, and it's decided that the girls need more space, so they get separate bedrooms. They also learn that while their mother appreciates Carolyn's socialness and their father appreciates Marilyn's piano and introspectiveness, both parents love them equally. This serves as foreshadowing and paralleling to Mary Anne and Dawn for next book.

Random Thoughts:

• Stacey is on a stricter diet than usual. I know at some point (like, 15 books from now), she runs into problems with her diabetes. It'll be interesting to see if this is the start of that foreshadowing, or if it drops off altogether til then.
• Charlie acquires the Junk Bucket in this one. To find this out, we're treated to another chapter of Kristy baby-sitting for Karen and her siblings. Yay =/
• It occurs to me that we never see chapters from the other girls baby-sitting for their own siblings, unless it's Mallory's siblings because it usually involves two sitters. Yet we're treated to Kristy sitting for her siblings all the time. Mind you, the only other character who has younger siblings is Jessi, but yeah. Stupid Karen haha
• Anyways, Kristy deals with her own bouts of sibling rivalry. Particularly Karen is annoyed with Emily being around and in her way. It's ironic, because Kristy could say the same of Karen. Anyways, because Karen is like, 6 years old, she's particularly nasty, and blames Emily for making a mess, causing Kristy to punish Emily. Poor, poor Emily. Not only is she too young to really speak up for herself, she's extra confused since she's still freshly adopted and learning English. I hate Karen.
• How much time has passed?? When did Richard and Sharon go from dating other people, to dating exclusively, to deciding to get married?? It's insane. Of course, nowadays, they would've lived together for awhile before deciding to get married, but back in the day, AMM couldn't write about pre-marital cohabitation. If this had been written today, I bet you the surprise announcement would have been that they had decided to move in together.
• Also: I find it interesting that they announce that they're getting married, and then appear to get married in like, a month. You'd think they'd want to talk things out more with the girls, and logistics and stuff. MA is overly sensitive, but in this case, I don't blame her for being upset at finding out that she's moving in a few weeks.
• Also: MA is right to be worried about everything. Richard and Sharon really should've sat the girls down more and had more family discussions. All MA hears from Dawn is how Sharon hates cats. Obviously MA is going to be worried about her own cat. And the whole idea of making meals for everyone is also something that needs to be worked out.
• The interesting thing about this book is that it actually says "To be continued in book #31...". I don't think any of the other books in the series have anything like that in them.
• I love the cover of this book because it actually matches a scene in it, down to the smallest detail.